He was a Lord in Waiting (Government Whip in the House of Lords) during 1994–97, and the shadow Lords minister for International Development during 1997–98.[4]

He has been married three times, the first time to Clarrissa Marie Lockett, whom he married in 1978; they were divorced in 1995. In 1995, he married his second wife, Amanda Atha, who died in 2000. In 2001, he married Antonia Kennedy Rubinstein.[citation needed]